


Sabretooth to the Rescue

by vanillafluffy



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: A boy and his dog, Diabetes, Gen, Role Reversal, Service Dogs, Villains to Heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 08:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13783932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: The theme was "role reversal", and the prompt was "a child finds the supervillain and acts like they found the hero, asks for help and the villain just can't not help this adorable tiny human"--although in this case, it's the villain finding the kid, and adorable has nothing to do with it.





	Sabretooth to the Rescue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [classics_lover](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=classics_lover).



> I'.ve always had a soft spot for comics-verse Sabey. Nothing against Liev Schreiber, but he's just not what I had pictured as MY Victor Creed

Standing on a hilltop overlooking the woods, he scents the air blowing in from the higher elevations to the north. Good smells: moist earth, wild violets, a raccoon’s den…. His hearing is preternaturally acute; he can hear agonized howls of pain from far away, and thinking it may be something suitable for dinner, Sabretooth makes his way in that direction. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep...he recalls a bit of an old poem he once had to learn. The trouble is, they aren’t so deep as they used to be. Take the area he’s in now--and apparently, everyone who can afford one of the shiny new McMansions that have sprung up since he was last here is doing just that. He’s disgusted by the detritus the new denizens are leaving behind--smashed beer bottles, junk food wrappers, used condoms--what the hell is the matter with these assholes? He kind of hopes he’ll run across a few he can teach a lesson to.

As the howls grow closer, another sound accompanies them--a shrill young voice screaming, “Help! Help!”

Sabretooth smiles, a predatory show of canines. _This should be fun._

Likely they won’t hear him over all their caterwalling, but he takes care to be stealthy nonetheless. Sure enough, when he makes his entrance, standing on a heap of boulders, the kid is looking in the other direction. The yelping is coming from beneath his feet--apparently there’s a cave or cleft in the rocks where the boy’s dog is.

“What are you yammering about?” he demands, and the boy whips around. He’s a runty little thing, maybe ten or eleven. Probably from those houses--he’s wearing sturdy corduroy pants and a blue plaid flannel jacket. LLBean or maybe it’s Lands End. Anyway, his folks have some money.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” The kid means it; he’s not even mildly apprehensive, let alone as scared as he ought to be. “Dusty went into that crack in the rocks after something, and now he can’t get out!”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“You could move those rocks, I bet. You’re so strong.” He says it in an awed tone that Sabretooth isn’t immune to--it sounds a lot like hero-worship, and nobody’s ever accused him of being a hero before. “Wow, I never thought you were so big--so tall…I know you could get him out!”

Sabretooth jumps lightly down from the mound. It’s only about three meters, not his idea of a difficult feat, but the boy’s hazel eyes widen with admiration. The dog must have caught his scent, because the howling stops and it just whimpers. Looks like the pooch is smarter than his owner.

“Thank you!” The kid is earnest, tilting his head back to look up at the alledged rescuer. “I’m having the worst day ever! We came out to explore, and I dropped my sandwich and Dusty ate it, then we were walking, and he smelled something and ran into those rocks and couldn’t get out. And I lost my glasses--my folks are gonna kill me!--and I think we’re lost.”

Part of him really wants to backhand the kid just to shut him up. It’s tempting. But he’s just a kid; he isn’t the one leaving beer bottles and secondhand prophylatics littering the woods. “One thing at a time. What’s your name, kid?”

“Edison Brantley, sir.”

Sir? Little Edison Brantley isn’t even being ironic, it’s that starry-eyed hero-worship business again, and really, it bugs the hell out of him. He knows damn well he doesn’t measure up to that standard; Hell, being civilized enough to be called ‘sir’ is a stretch.

“Alright, Edison, you can call me Victor.” He feels strange, making nice with the boy. It’s wrong, somehow, but since when has he done the expected thing? “I don’t know if you know this, Eddie, but it smells to me like there’s something wrong with your sugar.”

“Yes, sir. I’m diabetic. Dusty is my service dog, he alerts me if my sugar gets really low.”

“Except he ate your lunch and now you’re on the edge, aren’t you?” It’s a rhetorical question; his nose is as good as any bloodhound’s! He rummages in one of his pockets. He doesn’t happen to have a grinder taking up space in there, but he’s got a few red and white mints snagged on the way out of a diner the other day. He offers them to the boy, who brightens at the sight of them and thanks him. “Why the hell didn’t you go home after the mutt ate your vittles?”

Heroes don’t swear around kids, he thinks belatedly, but Edison is unwrapping one of the candies and doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Ah, my Aunt Shannon is visiting from Banff. She’s kind of a pain, asks a bunch of dumb questions about school and stuff like what do I want to be when I grow up. And when I told her an astronaut, she said that was silly and they’d never take me because of my diabetes. They could have a cure by then!”

“Reckon they could.” Victor inspects the formation where Dusty is trapped. It seems one of the boulders was unstable and must’ve shifted when the dog jumped over it, chasing---he sniffs. Groundhog. 

There’s enough space in there that the dog’s been able to turn back around--its eyes gleam in the scant light that makes its way into the nook--it isn’t a cave, just a niche in the massive boulders.The dog whines--it knows what he is. No hero-worship there. 

There’s a branch broken off where the boy must’ve tried to pry the rocks apart. He reaches out, tugs experimentally with one hand, but the slab of rock is unwieldy enough that he needs two hands for the job. It’s no effort to shift; it only weighs about fifty kilos.

“Call your dog,” Victor says. He could just grab it, but sure as eggs is eggs, the mutt would piss itself, and with his luck, all over him, too.

“Dusty! Come on, Dusty! Come here!”

The pooch gathers itself and darts past Victor--Sabretooth--and rejoins its master, quivering beside the boy, who is happily scratching his ears. No wonder it’s called Dusty--it’s grey and shaggy and looks like a dust mop with ears and a tail.

He could leave right now. Edison’s got his precious dog…but he still needs a proper lunch, and didn’t he say he was lost? Nah, Victor isn’t in the mood to be that much of a bastard today.

“Come on,” he growls. “Let’s get you home before you keel over.”

It’s easy enough to follow the scent of boy and dog--the kid’s is pretty distinctive--they wandered through the woods, occasionally going in circles. He finds the low rock where they’d paused for lunch. There’s a smear of tuna fish and mayonaise on the pine needles under it, but otherwise it’s tidy. So his little buddy isn’t a litterbug. Good to know.

His sharp eyes spot a flash of something that stands out from the rocks and plants…he bends over and plucks a pair of brown plastic-framed glasses from among some weeds. “These yours?”

Edison beams and settles them on his face. He blinks at Victor, looking confused, but the latter doesn’t give him a chance to say anything.

“Let’s go, we’re burning daylight.”

As they walk, Victor gives the boy lessons in how to mark a trail so he won't get lost again. At last, they emerge at the far end of the subdivision, still new and raw beside the venerable woods. It stinks of fresh asphalt, too many SUVs and minivans chugging up and down its streets, fertilizer and chemicals basting the too-green lawns, he taint of humanity.

“Okay, listen,” he tells Edison sternly. “From now on, you go nowhere without a snack, and you make sure that hairball doesn’t get at it. Learn your way around the woods, but don’t be trashing them up, understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

“And don’t call me sir!”

“Yes, Victor!” Edison hesitates. “You’re not who I thought you were…you’re _Sabretooth_ , aren’t you?”

“That’s right.” Victor purrs. The kid knows who he is, but he hasn’t headed for the hills? Will wonders never cease? 

“All the stories…you’re supposed to be a scary guy, but you’re nice.”

“Nice?” Victor roars. “Look at your dog, kid--he knows what I am! And I’m _not_ nice.” He gets right in the kid’s personal space and _looms_ , towering half a meter over the wide-eyed boy. “You’re alive because I don’t kill kids unless they give me crap--you’re not giving me crap, are you?”

“No, Victor!” His voice has gone up half an octave, and sure enough, the mutt has left a puddle on the pavement.

That’s better. He’s got a reputation to maintain. Sabretooth grins at him, another show of teeth, and turns back toward the lovely dark woods.

…


End file.
